I can see you in the morning when you go to school
Don't forget your books, you know you've got to learn the golden rule,
Teacher tells you stop your play and get on with your work
And be like Johnnie-too-good, well don't you know he never shirks
He's coming along..

After school is over you're playing in the park
Don't be out too late, don't let it get too dark
They tell you not to hang around and learn what life's about
And grow up just like them, won't you let it work it out
And you're full of doubt

Don't do this and don't do that
What are they trying to do?
Make a good boy of you
Do they know where it's at?
Don't criticize, they're old and wise
Do as they tell you to
Don't want the devil to
Come out and put your eyes

Maybe I'm mistaken expecting you to fight
Or maybe I'm just crazy, I don't know wrong from right
But while I am still living, I've just got this to say
It's always up to you if you want to be that
Want to see that
Want to see that way
You're coming along

16 Comments

General CommentThe song is the perfect start to the concept album that is Crime of the Century. There is a theme that runs though the album, and it starts off with someone (possibly Rudy) in his younger years, and just starting to question life.

There is actually a school of thought (no pun intended) that the whole album was about insanity, and schizophrenia. Dreamer is certainly about that, but it could well be a man wrestling with his own alter ego's.

Personally I think it is a concept album that, through the life of one man, shows how volatile human emotions are. And the Crime of the Century? Well I believe it's a theme that Supertramp revisited a few times later. The crime is about people wasting their lives by doing nothing. It's the end of the story (If Everyone Was Listening I believe is about the main characters life drawing to a close) in a very fitting way.

General CommentNow this song is obviously speaking out against school and the conformity involved in it. Now as grade 11 student at 17, I am listing to a song like this and looking and how it reflects my life and how school has changed me thus far. But "school" in this song is simply a symbolic term, and can be applied to work, media(tv,newspapers,billboards, magazines...etc), and even your own peers.
It would be simply lunacy to say that noone is trying to conform us or make us think in they're perspective...heck this song in itself does just that, but....it opens our eyes to how we've been "controlled" so far and what you can do about it.
Now one part of the song I never really understood for quite a while untill one day it just appeard to me...
Coincedentally ...I was at school and I went to the washroom and while i was doing my business i was loking at the writing on the wall and there was some brilliant stuff lol....but one thing caught my attention. there was a quote and it was written inside a drawing of a tv set. It said... "The revolution will not be televised...." at first it just kinda went in one ear and out the other but later on i really got thinking about it. when it all comes down too it the governments have 100% control of what we hear and see in the media, and how it is presented, so if something happens such as a the small beginnings a communist revolution we may never know untill it physically reaches us or something major happens to us.

Now....where this fits into school ... towards the middle of the song this line comes up..."Maybe I'm mistaken Expecting you to fight"...now take this as you will, but consider the possibilities of what is happening right now in the world that we wont hear till its too late....